December 17, 2007

Better Than Sylvia

… That would be my 2007 Predictions. With only two weeks left in 2007, I can confidently state that my predictions for 2007 were more accurate than those of Sylvia Browne and just about every other professional “psychic” in the business.

Click the link and read for yourself what I predicted for the year, back on January 1 2007. I haven’t edited the post since it was published as you can confirm if you check with the Wayback Machine (from February 4th 2007 – the earliest I can find).

Let’s run through some of the correct predictions I made.

I correctly predicted Cyclone Sidr that caused so much damage to Bangladesh:

There will be a major typhoon causing much damage and loss of life in SE Asia.

I correctly predicted that Tiger Woods would have a daughter:

Tiger Woods and his wife will announce they are expecting a baby […] and it will be a girl.

I also correctly predicted Christina Aguilera’s pregnancy:

Christina Aguilera will also announce she is expecting a child.

As much as I have looked, I haven’t found even one psychic who predicted either of these two celebrity pregnancies.

I correctly predicted that John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would announce their candidacies for President.

I correctly predicted that Tony Blair would step down as British Prime Minister and that Gordon Brown would replace him.

I correctly predicted that Snoop Dogg would get probation but not jail time.

I correctly predicted that “Brangelina” would stay together and adopt another child, but that they would not get married.

I correctly predicted that Lady Bird Johnson would die of natural causes.

For a comparison of how much better I was than the professional psychics, just look at this list of Sylvia Browne’s predictions. She was wrong about TomKat’s baby. Wrong about Brangelina. Wrong about J Lo and Marc Anthony. Wrong about Bush bringing the troops home. Wrong about property prices being “back up”. Wrong in just about everything she predicted. Unlike me.

Also, see these predictions from Jeffrey Palmer "The Psychic Detective." Funny, I don’t remember the “very strong earthquake centered near Los Angeles on March 13th 2007” or the “outbreak of a rare virus near or in the city of Boston in May 2007”. Admittedly we haven’t got to December 27th yet, so we still await the “event of global proportions [that] will occur on this date”. Mark your calendars.

So I beat all of these so called psychics. Congratulations to me.

Now, the cynics among you will probably say I ignored the predictions I got wrong and just concentrated on the hits. Well, I never claimed to be 100% accurate. And as Sylvia Browne said, only God is 100% accurate. Others may say that some of the predictions weren’t really that surprising. Well, at least I didn’t predict that Tiger Woods would win a golf tournament.

Of course, making obvious predictions, and then counting the hits and not the misses, is all that professional psychics do anyway. And I still think I did better than them. Remember that when, this year, we get the same bunch of lame playing the odds guesses, reprinted uncritically by a gullible media. And although these “psychic predictions” might look like just a bit of fun, remember that uncritically reporting this nonsense as if it were real gives cover for vultures like Browne to prey on the recently bereaved. They also waste police time by forcing them to follow up their made-up psychic “impressions”. I did better than any of them by just guessing.

If you’re still not convinced, I am available for psychic readings. I charge just $500 a pop which is still less than Sylvia. Just click the email link in the left hand column.

Autism rates will not fall in 2007, despite the lack of thimerosal in childhood vaccines. However, this will not prevent the anti-vaccination groups from continuing to claim that vaccines are a cause of autism.

My mum's a psychic. She is always just thinking of me just before I call her even though she hasn't thought of me for ages. She also knew I would have a girl (although she didn't want to say before she was born in case it "spooked me") and she knows her son who died in an accident talks to her now and then. What do you say to grieving people who fall for this stuff?

My mum's a psychic. She is always just thinking of me just before I call her even though she hasn't thought of me for ages. She also knew I would have a girl (although she didn't want to say before she was born in case it "spooked me") and she knows her son who died in an accident talks to her now and then. What do you say to grieving people who fall for this stuff?

She is always just thinking of me just before I call her even though she hasn't thought of me for ages.

And how many times does she tell you that you called but she wasn't thinking about you? Or that you didn't call when she was thinking about you?

She also knew I would have a girl

Wow, she got a 50/50 guess right. Must be psychic. Incidentally, so far I have guessed the sex of all my kids correctly as well. And the midwife guessed the sex of our first one too. She said she was pretty accurate generally speaking as well.

and she knows her son who died in an accident talks to her now and then.

Maybe she needs to let go. Accepting that death is the end is hard for everyone, but for a grieving parent I can't even imagine.

Jimmy, clearly my attempt at irony was unsuccessful. Of course she is deluded. My question is: how do you say this to a grieving mother without looking like a callous asshole? I mean, exactly how would you do it?

I think you just have to try to help them cope the same way you would with anyone. You might be blunt or use kid gloves, depending on your individual situation, but it's better for everyone when people are able to deal with reality as reality.

I don't think being callous is the way to go. Then she's lost two kids instead of one. If I were dealing with such an emotional subject as messages from a dead son, I'd just say, "hey that's great, mom" and let her talk. Only when dealing with less emotional topics (the idiots on tv, for example) might I broach the illogic of what she's talking about. But sometimes it just isn't worth it. The question is, does it give her comfort? It might make me feel better to destroy someone's delusion, but it isn't necessarily the best thing for them. I guess I'm mellowing in my middle age.

Perhaps I should send her Skeptico's article. AND the one on "The Secret". The again - I don't want to be responsible for sending another woo to you. Then I'd have to watch my mum make a fool of herself on my favourite (Aust sp)blog. And watch while you all call my mum an embecile. Hmmm. BRB.

I often wondered what would happen if a skeptic wrote a new age spiritual book, became the latest guru, made a packet, then publicly disclosed the trickery, donating the money to cancer research. What do you think the skeptic/guru's followers would do? Become skeptics? Keep the faith (even without the guru)?

I suspect they'd go for the latter. Downside of such a case would be that'd we'd have to explain the difference between a guy admitting he made the whole thing up without evidence and the fallacy of Darwin's/Pasteur's alleged deathbed recantations.

Yeah, Carlos did that. And I also seem to recall that there were Carlos true-believers, too, but I can't find a source for it.... I do know that there were some people who have insisted that James Randi himself has psychic powers, but he just wasn't aware of them.

So, yeah, some of them would insist that he was real, he just didn't know it. Some of them would probably go "Well, sure, he's a fake, but there are real ones out there!" And some, if you show them how they were deceived, and teach them to keep an eye out for those signs, might become skeptics.

Perhaps we should be looking more closely at why people need to believe in fantasies. In fact, why so many people want to escape reality. Is it akin to a drug? Was Marx right when he said that religion was the "opiate of the masses"?

BTW, the Carlos story is great and does help to answer my query, thanks.

Talking of psychics I recieved an e-mail from someone called Ron Ray claiming to be a clairvoyant the other day. He wanted to start a database of links of like minded individuals/astrologers/business people with their own websites.

I replied that if he was clairvoyant, he would have known I wasn't psychic; or an astrologer; nor did I believe in any of that junk; that I don't have my own website and that I am not a businessman.

The reply simply apologised for bothering me and wished me a pleasant 2008.

I thought Ron Ray maybe needed a little practise so I looked up his website. He's been doing this for nearly 20 years apparently.

Debbyo, please pick up that book if you havent already. Its a great, great foundation for skeptical thinking. Then give it to someone (your mother perhaps).

I sent it to 15 people as solstice gifts. Not that they needed it for the most part, but its just a great. I'm hoping to get enough people to read it to convince them that it should be required reading for high school.

I often wondered what would happen if a skeptic wrote a new age spiritual book, became the latest guru, made a packet, then publicly disclosed the trickery, donating the money to cancer research. What do you think the skeptic/guru's followers would do? Become skeptics? Keep the faith (even without the guru)?

For examples of this please see other: Scientology, UFO sightings, and the witch hunt positive feedback loop phenomenon.

Stuff which is 100% pure unadulterated horse-
radish and doesn't deserve to be discussed at all, yet people are making money off of them (except the witch hunts, excepting maybe historians, but that's ok).

People will believe in the face of overwhelming evidence.

To paraphrase the movie Dogma: "Beliefs are bad. It's better to have ideas, ideas can change."

I always wondered why celebrity pregnancies were so important. Still don't get it. Nor for Political ambitions or calamities. If you're getting messages from Higher Entities, I'd like to see a little bit more on earth survival and what we can do about it.